


Whole in Family and Love

by Lenny9987



Series: Lenny's Imagine Claire and Jamie Prompts [59]
Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-31 09:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17846921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lenny9987/pseuds/Lenny9987
Summary: Prompt: What if Jenny realized (just before Jamie's wedding with L) that she wouldn't do that when Ian was dead. As much she can't imagine herself to be wed to anyone else than Ian, she couldnnt do that to Jamie either. He is alone and sad, but he will not be happy in this situation.





	Whole in Family and Love

“How’s the bridegroom?” Jenny asked as Ian came to bed. “Does he have nerves?” She chuckled. It had been a while since they’d had much worth celebrating at Lallybroch—well, since they’d had much worth celebrating and Jamie home to celebrate with. Hogmanay didn’t count. He’d been there but it had taken half the night before he showed much liveliness at all. But it had been the beginning of him coming back— _ truly _ coming back. And the morning would be another fresh start for him and for that MacKimmie widow and her two lasses. 

“He didna say anything of the wedding tomorrow,” Ian informed Jenny with a somber tone that had Jenny sitting back up in bed beside him. 

“He didna say  _ anything _ about it? No even a thought for his bride?” 

Ian shook his head, his lips pressed together and brow furrowed in thought. 

“Perhaps tha’s just how he faces such things,” Ian tried to reason. “It’s no like we were there to see what state he was in when he wed Claire. Might be he was tight-lipped about it all then too.”

Jenny’s excitement ebbed at the thought, the memory of her lost sister-in-law. They hadn’t even had word from Jamie in years when he’d shown up out of the blue and with a sassenach wife. Not having had the opportunity to be there had been just one more thorn she caught on when thinking about those years after their father’s death and before Jamie’s return. When she was being fair, she reasoned that he hadn’t been present for her wedding either, that it wasn’t as important as supporting each other’s choice of spouse and the family they were when they were together. 

“After all,” Ian continued in his own reverie, slipping to lie down beneath the blankets already warmed by her presence. “We ken he and Claire didna choose one another when they wed, and see how that turned out. I suppose it may turn that way again wi’ him and the widow MacKimmie… in time.” 

“Ye say that like he doesna have a choice now,” Jenny snapped. 

Ian barely succeeded in suppressing his laugh. “I wouldna say ye schemed like yer uncle Dougal did when he wed Claire,” Ian said slowly and carefully, “but I think we both ken he wouldna be marrying tomorrow did he no have some help in the match from you.”

“Are ye sayin’ ye think I did wrong? Do ye no think he ought to be happy and wi’ a family of his own? He’s been on his own for so long now. It’s time he had another wife to care for and he’s taken to the lasses well enough,” Jenny responded defensively. 

Ian sighed and rolled toward her. “Aye, he’s been on his own for a long while, mournin’ Claire and what they might’ve had,” Ian agreed. “But… who’s to say if it’s been time enough for him? I want for him to be happy too… But it’s no about what  _ we _ want for him, aye? Should it no be what he wants for himself that matters?”

“What he wants,” Jenny said quietly, her pique ebbing away into her own familiar sorrow, “is Claire back. But that isna possible.”

“Do you think he’ll truly be happy with anyone else?”

“I think he’ll be happier than he is now,” Jenny replied, with less conviction than she would have a few minutes before.

“I pray ye’re right,” Ian said, resting a hand on Jenny’s thigh and giving it a squeeze before rolling onto his back and closing his eyes. 

Jenny watched him while he fell asleep. She listened to the familiar rhythm of his breathing, the rasp deep in his chest that sounded like a snore trying to climb its way out. She watched for the slight twitches in his limbs that indicated he was dreaming. 

He’d told her that when he dreamed he still had his leg, that he would run and jump and climb as he had in their youth; that he would go for walks with her and the children; that he would carry the bairns on his shoulders without the fear of dropping them. He never said he felt anything other than whole—hadn’t since those first weeks after his return. But she suspected it was only in his dreams that he felt truly whole—whole in body, whole in spirit… whole in family and love.

She’d always felt whole with Ian around. The last time she’d felt truly broken was after her father had died—Ian was away and only weeks later did she hear that Jamie had made it safely to France. She’d been alone then—or as alone as she could be with the estate to run. But it wasn’t until Ian returned, broken as he was, that she felt that driving sense of purpose again—that flicker in her chest that kept her warm and drove her forward, that made her feel… whole. 

Jenny’s chest tightened and she slipped out of bed and into the hallway. She needed to move. Whenever something washed over her and threatened to overwhelm her, moving—one foot, then the other, and again and turn and back—moving kept her from going under. 

Just as she and Ian made one another feel whole, Claire had done that for Jamie (and having ridden alongside Claire to find Jamie after he’d been taken, Jenny was fairly certain Jamie had done the same for Claire). Each time the soldiers had come and taken Ian away for questioning and a few days or weeks in prison, fear and longing had filled the emptiness left by Ian’s absence, but no matter how much she had of either, it was never enough to make her feel complete—and what a horrible kind of whole would it have been if it had? To just accept that missing piece?

It was natural to try to fill it, wasn’t it? To find a new piece for that empty space. 

But no one would fit that space the way Ian did. Not for her. And maybe not for Jamie. 

But it was different for her. She would have the children and their children as comfort if the worst should ever happen (she said a quick prayer and crossed herself against the very thought). Jamie… he didn’t have that.

He only had her… and Ian… and their children and grandchildren. They weren’t nothing… but would they be enough? Or would Laoghaire and her girls fill that empty space better?

She was in front of his door and then through it before she could change her mind. 

He was flat on his back, his hands resting on his chest and his toes sticking out from the sheets at the bottom of the bed. She knew he was too long for the bed but he always insisted that no, he was fine and not to make such a fuss. 

Jenny seated herself on the edge of the bed, watching him as she had when he was a bairn and she used to keep an eye on him for their mother. Reaching out, she stroked lightly down the side of his face, waiting for the half smile she remembered from those days. 

It didn’t come. His nose twitched and he reached up to scratch it, waking just enough to notice her presence and jolt upright. She jumped up and out of the way before he could defend himself by grabbing or striking her. 

“I’m sorry, Jamie,” she said quickly. “I didna mean to startle ye awake.” 

“What in the name of St. Bride are ye doin’ in here Jenny?” he asked harshly, rubbing his hands over his face. 

“Ye dinna have to go through wi’ it,” Jenny told him. “If it’s no what ye truly want… ye needna wed Laoghaire tomorrow. I’ll… I’ll send word ‘round and I’ll tell them all tis my doin’ and there’s somethin’ about the match that’s changed my mind—I’ll no have folk blamin’ ye for throwin’ her over when it’s my doin’ in the first place,” she babbled.

Jamie blinked at her. “Slow down, Janet, and say it again so I might have a chance of understandin’ ye.”

“I’m sorry I’ve pushed ye to marry when ye’ve no been ready,” Jenny answered, her voice heavy with regret. “I want to see ye happy but it’s no for me to say what it is that’ll make ye so. I… I dinna ken as I’d ever be able to face marriage wi’ anyone but Ian… And I understand if ye dinna want another lass just because ye cannae have Claire.”

Jamie’s jaw tightened and he looked down at the mention of Claire. 

“She… she would want me to be happy,” Jamie asserted.

“And if ye think marryin’ Laoghaire will make ye so, then forget I came and said anything,” Jenny told him. “But… if ye dinna think—if ye’re no  _ sure _ … It’s no just yer life as will be affected. It’s Laoghaire’s and the lasses’ lives too. So if ye’re no  _ sure _ …”

“I’m not sure of anything,” Jamie confessed.

“Ye’ll never stop lovin’ Claire, whatever ye choose,” Jenny said. “Ye can be sure of that.”

“Aye… I’m sure of that,” he agreed. 

“And ye can be sure that Ian and I are here for ye, and ye’ll always have a place here, whether ye wed in the mornin’ or no.”

“Thank ye.”


End file.
